Rise and Fall Of An Industry

 Pictured above are two subjects of Crittenden County's past - the fluorspar industry and the railroad which was removed from the county in 1999 after 113 years of history.   The picture shows a man on the left shoveling spar into an empty train car.  Spar was hauled in to Marion from the county mines, unloaded in bins and then loaded into the train cars for shipment to places all over the US.

Perhaps the most significant event to occur in Crittenden County during the last 100 years is the rise, and subsequent fall, of the fluorspar industry within the county.

The earliest attempts to mine fluorspar were made by a company headed by Andrew Jackson in 1835 at the Columbia Mines near present-day Marion.

However, it was not until 1873 that the first shipment of fluorspar was shipped out of Crittenden County.

The industry then grew and grew until 1896 when Crittenden County became the largest producer of fluorspar in the world.

The growth of the fluorspar industry also prompted the installation of a railroad in the county in 1886.  Fluorspar could now be easily shipped by the ton.

In fact, at one time, Crittenden County spar miners had a payroll of $2 million per year and employed over 1,500 workers at more than 100 mines.

Many fluorspar magnates became millionaires, many men fed and provided for their families on spar mine paychecks and a strong economic base began to attract countless retailers.

Fluorspar helped Crittenden County's population grow to over 15,000 people in the early 1900s.

As unions strengthened in the United States, it became increasing difficult for fluorspar giants to maintain the high profit margins of the turn of the century. 

Another blow to the once-great industry was the onset of the Great Depression in late 1929.  Profits began to shrink even more which required more and more layoffs to offset losses.

The last blow was when fluorspar finally became cheaper to import than produce in rural area, the mine shafts of Crittenden County closed and the hopes and dreams of hundreds of families faced serious peril.

Dozens of hometown families left the county for jobs in the steel mills in Indiana, also the car factories in Missouri and Detroit.

Today the legend of the fluorspar industry in our community continues to live through the efforts of remembering and sharing stories of those past days, and the Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum on North Walker Street that is a living history of those wonderful fluorspar days.  Anything concerning the fluorspar industry you will be able to find here at the Clement Mineral Museum.